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Phaedron makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Yeah,” he says. “I haven’t exactly heard a lot of good things about the Kingdom of the Summer.”
Even as I smile at him, something cold slides through the back of my mind.
I need to tell him.
I swallow hard as my smile falters. It’s true; Phaedron deserves to know why I’m running from Grathgore’s kingdom. And, stars above, I’ve just seen him naked. I just asked him what happened to him, of all the rude and insensitive things to blurt out over the mangled corpse of a cave spider. Shouldn’t I open up in response? Shouldn’t he know exactly what I’m stealing from King Grathgore?
A shiver trembles across the back of my neck. Soon, I promise myself. Not now, but soon.
Chapter12
Phaedron
THEY EAT THEIR DEAD
Well, that was awful.
I turn away from Alindra and run my arm across my forehead. My illusion shirt tingles as I try to make it move naturally. Voids, I’m an idiot. How long would it have taken to pull on my damned shirt when I heard that scream?
But I glance at the cave spider, and there’s my answer. I was practically lying down in the riverbed, trying to wash the grime and dust of this miserably hot world off my body, when I heard Alindra scream. My body reacted without thought, grabbing my sword from the riverbank and sprinting up the hill.
And only just in time. When I came crashing into the meadow, the cave spider had Alindra between its hind legs with its fangs poised to deliver venom into her body. I’d seen it before; the World’s End used to have regular problems with cave spiders, at least until the cold drove them away. I ran toward that vulnerable spot on the spider’s back between the thorax and the abdomen and drove my sword home.
At no point did it occur to me that I was still completely naked. Not until I stepped away from the thrashing corpse of the cave spider and found Alindra staring at me, her eyes wide and her cheeks so dark they looked like the very ceiling of the world.
Right. That’s when I realized I’d forgotten pants. Worse, I’d forgotten a shirt. Shame burned deep in my chest as I pulled an illusion around my body, hiding those horrible scars. The scars I hadn’t even let Rowan see. The ones I’d hoped to hide from the entire world, forever.
I clear my throat, trying to pull myself back to the present. Keeping my scars hidden was a stupid wish. Childish, says a voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like my father. My father’s voice doesn’t often speak to me, not anymore. Hearing it now feels like an ill omen.
I wipe the blade of my sword, my Skyfire, on the grass one more time, then put her back in her sheath. I’m clumsy with her in my left hand, but still, we managed to get the job done. My eyes skate over Alindra and return to the spider’s mangled corpse. Its legs are curling inward already, returning to the center of the spider’s body as death claims its muscles.
“We should probably get out of here,” I say.
Alindra’s mouth opens in a wide O, but no words come out. I shrug toward the spider.
“Cave spiders,” I explain. “They eat their dead.”
Alindra’s entire body shudders.
“Unless you want to eat it first?” I offer, with a grin.
Her expression transforms from shock to disgust. “You’re kidding,” she spits.
I’m not, and I’ve eaten worse. Voids, I fed worse to Rowan when I was struggling to raise him in the wilds of the Lands Below. But she’s had a rough morning, and I decide not to push it.
“There’s cattails along the river,” I say. “I think I’d prefer to eat them for breakfast, if you don’t mind.”
Her chest rises and falls in a way that presses against the laces of her dress, and my illusion of clothing slips as my focus drifts. I turn away, looking to fix my attention on something other than the curves of Alindra’s chest, and a speck of white catches my eye.
White, small, and surrounded by glittering bits of gold. It takes me a moment to recognize gold coins ground into the dirt beside the dark shape of Alindra’s bag. The spider’s death throes must have dragged her bag across the field. Screaming voids, I’ve been wondering what she could possibly be carrying inside that heavy bag, but I never would have guessed it was loaded with gold. I tear my gaze away and give her a smile.
“Do you think the horse is still around?” I ask.
“Oh!” she replies, with an expression that suggests she’d completely forgotten about the horse. “I’ll look for him.”
“I’ll gather our things,” I reply, turning back to the bits of shiny metal gleaming in the dirt.
Once Alindra disappears into the forest, I collect as much of the scattered gold as I can find and refill her bag. Perhaps the Worlds Above work differently, but voids, this feels like a tremendous amount of gold. What exactly was she hoping to buy in the Lands Below? A palace?
